Programs Won't Boot After Wrong Registry Keys Deleted

[RPeters3607]

I'm having issues with my computer. Bad issues. And I suspect registry keys were deleted that shouldn't have been. I'll give the full story:

I was trying to uninstall a program and it froze while uninstalling. And I cancelled the uninstall. It wasn't too far in. I couldn't use the program's normal uninstaller so I resorted to an uninstaller program to force the uninstall. After spending hours finding all of the thousands of things from this program I rebooted and ALL of my English characters were gone. Everything was in some strange symbols (the clock, icons, EVERYTHING). So I copied the system font files from my laptop and pasted them into my desktop. Problem solved. Well then I found that certain programs won't open now, mostly games, but games that I like and play often. Also, I'm getting a new error upon starting up that says the following: "WSAStartup() failed, or you have the incorrect version of WinSock installed". I think this is coming from BitTorrent. When I click on certain programs nothing happens now. Things I know were working yesterday.

Basically, after attempting to force uninstall a program, several other programs will no longer boot and I have a feeling vital registry keys were deleted.

In case you for some reason need system specs:
Windows 7 x64 Home Premium
Intel Quad-Core i7 920
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 Motherboard
Sapphire Radeon R9 280 Dual-X
12gb DDR3 RAM


If anyone can help me solve this issue I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

 

[Darkbreeze]

Honestly, if an OS corruption to the degree where multiple programs will no longer run has occurred, I'd recommend reinstalling those applications as a first step, but you'll likely need to completely reinstall the operating system AND the applications. It's nearly impossible to correct issues related to the deletion of essential registry entries, especially if you have no idea exactly what entries and strings were involved. You could spend days on end making the attempt and still have to reinstall anyhow.

Windows 7 clean install: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

[RPeters3607]

I want to exhaust all other options before I go reinstalling the OS and losing everything. I may have solved my issue though. I found a system restore file from exactly a week ago so I decided to try restoring to that point. Everything seems to be in working order, except those programs which I was attempting to uninstall. But as long as everything else is working okay then I'll be happy. I'll test it out and if everything seems alright I'll let you know.

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you had a restore point prior to the issue, you should be fine. Doing an in place repair, won't wipe your files, settings and applications either. You can safely run a repair which only corrects issues with the OS and file structure. That doesn't do much for applications though. Restoring to a previous point in time would be better as you did. For future reference, this is why it's a very good idea to get a backup program like Acronis True Image and take weekly or even every couple of days make a system image backup that will restore your ENTIRE system, exactly to the way it was at the point in time when you made the image.

 

[RPeters3607]

Using the restore point seems to have solved the issue. I'll be sure to use a backup program from now on as you said. Lesson learned haha. Are there good backup programs that are free?

 

[Darkbreeze]

Aomei backupper free edition or paragon free edition. I like the Aomei free edition, if I'm going with something that has no investment. The only shortcoming of it is that it won't do automatically scheduled backups, which to me is just fine as I don't want extra services running in the background anyhow. When I want to make a backup image, I WILL MAKE ONE. I don't need the system deciding when to do it.

I'm meticulous about it though. If you tend to forget to do backups regularly, you might want something that has automatic features.

http://www.aomeisoftware.com/download/adb/BackupperFull.exe